I watch startrek for the science fictions. The whole them of future and space ect

I don't watch startrek to sit and watch a 1950's drama about racism.

Thge only good thing about the whole thing was the acting.

By the way I find most holodeck episodes boring as hell too.

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I polled the local electorate, and the answer to your question is "yes."

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You are incorrect.

I did not find it boring but I DID find it on the nose and simplistic. Add to it the almost universal praise it receives, which I always took as "Look at me hopping on the PC bandwagon and liking this episode! I'm a GOOD PERSON!!!"

Throw in Brooks' usual overwrought, I WILL E-NUN-SEE-ATE E-VERRR-REEE SILL-UH-BULL delivery and it is virtually unwatchable to me.

Not a bad episode. I liked seeing the actors in a more 'contemporary setting' for once. I also liked how character relations translated to that setting, that some specific character interactions still held true in that other setting, as well as some of the show's central themes. I also like the idea that within the episode itself, the possibility is kept open that Benny really is imagining Benjamin Sisko, instead of the other way around.

Anyone who thinks Brooks was overacting in that episode, be grateful that your life experience hasn't taught you just how realistic his portrayal of Benny's emotional distress was. IMO, Brooks does sometimes overact, but this episode wasn't one of those times.

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Completely agree with this.

--Sran

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Well, I've experienced several real-life breakdowns in people close to me, and his acting still doesn't convince me. It's not exactly that he is acting too extreme or so - IRL, I've seen people breaking down go "over the top" way more than he does-, it's more that he seems to erm, force out his depiction of emotions that aren't really there, which makes them seem shallow and unreal to me.

I'm slowly working my way through season six on DVD and have just now watched this for the first time. A nice experiment. Great to see some of the regulars out of makeup and prosthetics and in new roles. It doesn't have the most original premise or the most profound insights, but overall I think it was up to DS9's high standards.

Sisko/Russel's breakdown was a little bit funny, but I think just short of going over the top considering the circumstances. Brooks has done a lot worse (not that he doesn't usually turn in a good performance).

It's sometimes helpful to use contrast to drive home a particular point. The Star Trek universe presents a uniform, utopian society, and it's easy to view problems such as racism as an abstraction when faced with the ideals and views of the Federation. The vision experienced by Sisko allows the audience to see the characters of Deep Space 9 as they may have been had they lived in a world dominated by intolerance, a world that is still extremely relevant in our own society, unfortunately, for we are not as far removed from the problems of the early-to-mid-twentieth century.

The vision is made all the more powerful by the episode's conclusion, the scene in which Sisko is speaking with his father and offers the idea that perhaps Deep Space 9 is the illusion- that Benny Russell dreams of the universe that Sisko and company live in- an idea that many who love Star Trek can relate to.

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This. While there is certainly a lot of themes involving racism and xenophobia elsewhere involving alien races, I think this was also making a point specifically about humans, and to do that, it was helpful to set it in the past. Contrasting this with regular DS9 showed that humans had moved beyond that. Sisko's skin color is completely irrelevant on DS9, and that's the whole point: in the past, it would have been a big deal. (It's kind of like, I think it's the first eps of TNG where Q is talking about the savagery of the human species, and Picard tries to tell them how far humans have come.)

This issue is addressed in one of the holosuite/Vic Fontaine eps where Sisko tells Kassidy he refuses to go to Vic's because of the racism in that time period. Kassidy says it's an idealized version of the time, but that it doesn't mean they're forgetting about racism in the past. Still, Sisko's initial refusal shows that he feels, that by having fun in a cleaned-up version of the past, he's doing a disservice to the memory of all the people in the past who suffered because of racism.

Throw in Brooks' usual overwrought, I WILL E-NUN-SEE-ATE E-VERRR-REEE SILL-UH-BULL delivery and it is virtually unwatchable to me.

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I think it's a pretty dull episode, and I agree with the OP. Not impressed with Avery Brook's embarrassingly bad over-acting on display in the episode either.

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I can't stand it when he shouts, in this or any other episode. I have no problem with Avery Brooks otherwise, but his shouting annoys me so bad. "Iiiittt's Reeeaaaalll!"

Other than that, I thought it was a fun episode (though a bit preachy), I liked seeing a lot of the actors without makeup, and little funny things they said, like Dax talking about a story about a woman with a worm in her belly.

I polled the local electorate, and the answer to your question is "yes."

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You are incorrect.

I did not find it boring but I DID find it on the nose and simplistic. Add to it the almost universal praise it receives, which I always took as "Look at me hopping on the PC bandwagon and liking this episode! I'm a GOOD PERSON!!!"

Throw in Brooks' usual overwrought, I WILL E-NUN-SEE-ATE E-VERRR-REEE SILL-UH-BULL delivery and it is virtually unwatchable to me.

I don't see it as hopping on the PC bandwagon, and there are lots of reasons a person might dislike it for, but really, the themes are not unique to this episode. It's just that something like Dukat saying Cardassians are naturally superior to the Bajorans just doesn't quite hit home in the same way as real world examples of human racism in this ep, and I think that's the whole point. Racism still exists in DS9, but it's making the point that humans aren't as bad as they used to be.

But I can definitely understand not liking it because of how heavy-handed it is (and Sisko's enunciation!),

I love this episode, but I've always had a question regarding the breakdown scene. How does one overact a mental breakdown? People here are calling it hammy, yet doesn't that go with the territory in terms of breakdowns? I probably could have done with one less "It's Real", but other than that, I thought it brought out the desperation and sorrow really well.

I love this episode, but I've always had a question regarding the breakdown scene. How does one overact a mental breakdown? People here are calling it hammy, yet doesn't that go with the territory in terms of breakdowns? I probably could have done with one less "It's Real", but other than that, I thought it brought out the desperation and sorrow really well.

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I'd recommend reading a few of the other posts in this thread to get your answer. It's probably better we don't rehash this debate.

I love this episode, but I've always had a question regarding the breakdown scene. How does one overact a mental breakdown? People here are calling it hammy, yet doesn't that go with the territory in terms of breakdowns? I probably could have done with one less "It's Real", but other than that, I thought it brought out the desperation and sorrow really well.

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I'd recommend reading a few of the other posts in this thread to get your answer. It's probably better we don't rehash this debate.

--Sran

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I skimmed through the posts and I'm not sure my question is rehashing what was said. Granted, it did almost get there with the whole life experience thing, but my question really is how can having an uncontrollable breakdown be hammy and what Brooks could have done to improve that performance. I've never had a breakdown, nor do I know anyone who had one, but I have to think acting a breakdown is incredibly tough to do.

I didn't like this episode when it first aired, but I watched it again this week and loved it. In his intensity, I think that Brooks was spot on in approaching the breakdown. It just seemed odd that Benny was equally coherent, which I attribute to how it was written. My biggest concern about the episode remained: it didn't clearly connect to the series as a whole. It could be an allegory about how Sisko interpreted his trials and challenges, which makes it intriguing to a series fan. On the other hand, I don't think it would tell a newcomer much about the series, the character and their conflicts.

Yeah, I don't care for it either. Like other episodes such as "Family" from TNG, I just don't care for the "down-to-earth" drama episodes. I like sci-fi in my Trek. But, that's just my preference--if it's an episode many love and respect--great!

You guys are crazy. It is CLASSIC sci-fi. It is meta. it is DS9 amazing. It shows us all our faves in different roles. It hints that all DS9 (and trek by extension) is a dream in the mind of a sci-fi writer, which IT WAS until Roddenberry made it a reality! It is a great great great bit of sci fi television, right up there with the greatest eps of Twilight Zone.